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Making it to the World No. 1 spot in the rankings in any sport is a historic feat. In the sport of tennis, players have to work their way up from the junior level of the game and accumulate enough points to reach the highest tiers before they find themselves in a competitive pool of the highest-ranked athletes.
Reaching the World No. 1 spot is a steep path. But a player's ability is put to the test when he has to maintain that spot in order to assert his dominance. In tennis, a player has to defend or gain all the points that he accumulated the previous season in order to avoid a drop in the rankings.
The first computer-generated rankings by the ATP were released in 1973. A player's ranking points are based on the total points he accumulated from the four Slams, nine Masters events, and the seven best results from other non-mandatory events.
If a player qualifies for the year-ending championships, then ranking points are added based on the performance of the player in the event. Based on this, a player can amass a maximum of 21,500 points in one tennis season.
Only six players have managed to maintain their World No. 1 position for an entire tennis season.
#1 Jimmy Connors - 1975, 1976, 1978
Jimmy Connors was in his prime between 1974 and 1978. The 1974 season was statistically the best season of his career, where he won all three Majors he entered and won 99 of the 103 matches he played that season.
The following year, he made the finals of the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open, but ended up as the runner-up each time. He won nine titles in 1975 and had a 82-8 win-loss record for the season that aided him in maintaining his World No. 1 spot for all 52 weeks.
The following season saw Connors claim the US Open title yet again. He won 12 titles in 1976 and won 90 of the 98 matches he played. A 4-0 record against Bjorn Borg that season justified Connors as the undisputed No. 1 for an entire season yet again. Connors could have been the World No. 1 for all 52 weeks in 1977. But a defeat against Guillermo Vilas in the finals of the US Open made Borg the world No. 1 for a single week that season.
As the year-end No. 1 in 1977, the 1978 season saw Connors at his best yet again. He won 10 titles, including his third US Open crown. The eight-time Major champion's win-rate for the 1978 season was 91.8% and was thus the World No. 1 for all 52 weeks for the third time in his career.
#2 Ivan Lendl - 1986, 1987
Ivan Lendl reached the finals of the 1985 US Open and reached at least the final of every Major until the 1988 Australian Open. Lendl is the only player in the history of men's tennis to have five different seasons (three consecutive) with a win-rate of over 90%. The Czech's prime years were from 1984 to 1988.
He finished 1985 as the year-end World No.1. In 1986, Lendl won the French Open, US Open and the year-ending finals. He was also a runner-up at Wimbledon and won nine titles that season, finishing with a win-loss record of 74-6. He then became only the second player after Connors to maintain the World No. 1 position for the entire season.
The following season, Lendl produced identical results at the Majors and year-ending championships. The eight-time Major champion was 74-7 for the season and hung on to the No. 1 spot throughout the season. It was in September 1988, when Lendl would yield the World No. 1 spot for the first time since September 1985.
#3 Pete Sampras - 1994, 1997
In April 1993, Pete Sampras became the eleventh man to be ranked World No. 1 by the ATP. He finished as the year-end World No. 1 after a competitive tussle between himself and Jim Courier for the top spot. The 1994 season saw Sampras win 10 of the 18 tournaments he entered. He was triumphant at the Australian Open, Wimbledon championships and also won the year-ending championships. Sampras finished the season with a win-loss record of 77-12.
Sampras was ranked the year-end No. 1 each year from 1993 to 1998. However, in 1995, 1996 and 1998, he was often displaced from the No. 1 position by Andre Agassi and Marcelo Rios. The 1997 was the second instance for Sampras when he was ranked World No. 1 for a full season. The 14-time Major singles champion had a 82% win-rate that year, winning eight titles including the Australian Open, Wimbledon, ATP Masters Cup and the Grand Slam Cup.
#4 Lleyton Hewitt - 2002
Lleyton Hewitt was ranked the World No. 1 player for a total of 80 weeks. The Australian peaked during the 2001 and 2002 tennis seasons, where he won 11 titles of the 41 tournaments he entered. He won his second and final Major singles title at the 2002 Wimbledon championships and successfully defended his ATP Masters Cup title. The 2002 season saw Hewitt ranked as the World No. 1 for the entire year, wherein he had a win-rate of 80%.
#5 Roger Federer - 2005, 2006, 2007
When Roger Federer reached the World No.1 ranking for the first time in February 2004, he clinched on to that position for an Open Era record of 237 consecutive weeks. Between 2004 and 2007, the Swiss won 11 of 16 singles Majors. The 20-time singles Slam champion had a win-rate of 95%, 95% and 88% in 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively.
In the latter two seasons, he made the finals of every Major, and won three Grand Slam titles each season.
Between 2003 and 2007, 2004 was the only year where the Swiss Maestro lost in the finals of the year-ending championships. He amassed 10 Masters titles between 2005 to 2007. In the three seasons where he was ranked the No.1 player for all 52 weeks of the season, Federer won 31 of the 48 tournaments he entered.
#6 Novak Djokovic - 2015, 2021
Novak Djokovic's 2015 season has been widely lauded as one of the most dominant tennis seasons in the history of the game. The 21-time Slam champion first reached the No.1 spot in 2011, a season where he was 10-1 against Federer and Nadal. Between 2011 and 2021, Djokovic was the year-end World No.1 on seven occasions.
In 2015, the Serb capped off his best season yet, winning three of the four Major finals he played in, winning six Masters titles and the year-ending championships. He won 82 of the 88 matches he played that year, winning 11 of the 16 tournaments he entered.
In 2021, the two-time Career Slam winner came eerily close to completing the Calendar Grand Slam. After winning the first three Majors of the year, Djokovic lost the 2021 US Open final against Daniil Medvedev.
The two-time Golden Masters champion won only one Masters title last year and finished the season with a win-loss record of 55-7. It was the second time in his career where he maintained the World No. 1 ranking from the start to the end of the season.
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